1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system which performs support for setting insurance premium rates of non-life insurance, accident insurance, and the like. In particular, this invention relates to an insurance premium rate setting support system which performs support for reasonably and effectively setting insurance premium rates based on an evaluation of an earthquake occurrence probability.
2. Description of the Related Art
In non-life insurance, which is defined herein as any insurance not covering a person's life, insurance is not intended to pay for an entire loss from an earthquake. However, in consideration of earthquakes which occurred during the past 500 years, based on seismic intensities, building destructions, destructions by fire, destructions by tsunami, and the like in those earthquakes, damages from an earthquake are calculated assuming that the same earthquake as the Great Kanto Earthquake occurs. Additionally, an insurance payout is calculated in consideration of a state of earthquake insurance contracts.
On the other hand, earthquake insurance has meaning in terms of social policy, therefore insurance companies are required to institute a mechanism referred to as “a no-loss and no-profit principle” whereby the companies neither gain profits nor suffer losses. In this institution, in each year when there has been no earthquake or when payouts have been so small in amount that surpluses have been generated in the earthquake insurance, it is required to accumulate, as a reserve, all of the surpluses. This accumulation has been conducted for the past 30 years.
As apparent from damage by the Great Kanto Earthquake and by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, damage from an earthquake has a large regional scope, and results in an enormous amount of losses. This brings about the necessity for the insurance companies to consider revenue and expenditure on an extremely long term basis in increments of 500 years. In accordance with this necessity, the necessity for insurance companies to provide insurance in view of earthquakes, besides insurance for losses which insurance companies can cover only from the economical standpoint, has been considered since the Meiji Era. Nevertheless, it was in the year 1965 with the wake of the Niigata earthquake in June 1964 as a turning point that a mechanism involving government fund injection was instituted and thereby underwriting of the insurance was realized. However, once an earthquake occurs, as one can easily expect, damages are huge. The mechanism is not intended to cover the entire amount of damage. Additionally, the mechanism has an aspect that, if an earthquake occurs before a sufficient amount of insurance is accumulated, it becomes dysfunctional. With the above background, in the case of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, insurance payouts were made from a government fund in addition to accumulated insurance.
In the case of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, concrete roadbeds of railroads for the Shinkansen collapsed, and an express motorway fell down due to collapse of supports thereof. Since the earthquake occurred early in the morning, the time was before the first Shinkansen train of the day would be operated, and before car traffic would be congested. For these reasons, the Shinkansen did not sustain damage of derailment and overturn, and as well, the motorway remained with the minimum damage. In the case of the Chuetsu earthquake, however, the Shinkansen was not able to avoid derailment although an emergency stop system, which utilizes an arrival time difference of P and S waves, went into operation. The state where a Shinkansen train sustained only derailment without damage to its passengers was lucky that it was not worse.
So far, the Shinkansens have achieved records of no accident in past years. Then, despite of the experience with the Great Hanshin Earthquake, it appears that safety of the Shinkansens has been appraised. On the other hand, when the reality is faced, insurance is considered to be an appropriate provision for the purpose of covering risks both for a transport operating company and for users (passengers) thereof. The same can be also applied to a situation of an individual passenger. In reality, however, in the case of travel accident insurance, damage from an earthquake is excluded from coverage. Based on the background of no accident in the past since the start of operation of the Shinkansens, there is a high possibility that damage to one insured thereby will be caused by an earthquake. By taking that high possibility into consideration, it may be considered that the insurance ends up having no meaning.
A current situation is that a reliable prediction for an earthquake occurrence is still far from being realized, and one should not count on simply carrying out disaster prevention measures by placing high expectations on the prediction. However, it has been made possible to estimate a progress of strain accumulation in an overall view as an earthquake occurrence possibility in a future time period with reference to a past history of earthquake occurrences. This issue is described for instance in “Kyodai Jishin (Great Earthquake)” (written by Tsuneji Rikitake, published in 1976 in the Blue Backs series by Kodansya Ltd.). Specifically, as shown in FIG. 3, a probability that an earthquake having the same level as the Great Kanto Earthquake occurs after the Great Kanto Earthquake has been creeping up and is definitely increasing since a time point immediately after the Great Kanto Earthquake. The probability mentioned as above is estimated based on a history regarding earthquake occurrences in surrounding areas of the past and based on the number of years elapsed after the earthquake, in consideration of various properties of earthquakes such as one generated in association with a plate movement estimated in the Pacific Ocean coastal region, and one generated by an active fault in an inland region. FIG. 4 shows results announced by a government research committee, and it is indicated therein that a probability of earthquake occurrence has become considerably high in the South Kanto area. This issue is described for instance in the Aug. 24, 2004 edition of the Ashahi Shinbun.
Incidentally, it has been conventionally possible to obtain earthquake insurance at the time of purchasing fire insurance, as an addition to the fire insurance. Nevertheless, in a case of insuring a house, an amount covered by earthquake insurance is limited to the lower one of an amount limited to 50 million yen and 30 to 50% of an amount covered by the fire insurance to which the earthquake insurance is added. Moreover, insurance premium rates are defined by the Property and Casualty Insurance Rating Organization as shown in FIG. 5 corresponding to classification by 4 phases depending on earthquake shaking intensities (seismic intensities) estimated for all parts of the country, the intensities having been calculated based on past earthquake histories of the respective parts. Table 1 as follows shows definitions corresponding to this classification with respect to each building type. This issue is described for instance in page 144 of “Gendai no Risk to Hoken (Modem Risk and Insurance)” (written by Mitsutsune Yamaguchi, published in 1988 by Iwanami-Shoten).
TABLE 1Earthquake insurance premium rate table(insurance coverage of 1,000 yen per one year of insurance term)Non-woodenWoodenRank 1 area0.50 yen1.45 yenRank 2 area0.70 yen2.00 yenRank 3 area1.35 yen2.80 yenRank 4 area1.75 yen4.30 yen
Nevertheless, since, in the wake of an earthquake, specification of concerned areas thereof is needed and an enormous amount of damages is caused, the insurance mechanism thus defined cannot work as a mechanism only with non-life insurance companies being responsible for underwriting the insurance. Therefore, owing to reinsurance therefor established by the Japanese government, the mechanism has been made functional. In 1966 when earthquake insurance underwriting was started, a total payout limit for one earthquake was 300 billion yen. Since a total asset of the non-life insurance companies at the time was 350 billion yen, it would have been impossible to start earthquake insurance underwriting without a political measure of the government.
In the total payout limit, the government and the non-life insurers were set to bear 270 billion yen and 30 billion yen respectively. In the recent years, the total payout limit has been raised to 3,700 billion yen, and shares therein of the government and the non-life insurers have been set to be 3,197.45 billion yen and 502.55 billion yen respectively. In the 30 years since the mechanism was instituted, a reserve fund therefor had been accumulated to be 842 billion yen, which is broken down into 478.6 billion yen by the government and 363.4 billion yen by the non-life insurers. Incidentally, the reinsurance purchased by the government includes a condition that the reinsurance is effective for damages of a predetermined amount or larger, and it is reported that it was used for the first time when a total amount of 78 billion yen was paid out in the occasion of the Great Hanshin Earthquake. This issue is described for instance in the chapter 3 of “Gendai no Risk to Hoken”.
As mentioned hereinabove, there are a number of unsolved problems relating to the mechanism of earthquake occurrence, and there are problems in insurance coverage for damages caused by an earthquake, including a problem that, since there involve uncertainty of occurrence time thereof and the enormousness of damages caused once the earthquake occurred, the insurance coverage does not work without budgetary steps taken by the government. Even with these problems, nevertheless, insurance is an essential countermeasure for the purpose of keeping a reserve for and covering a risk from an earthquake. With these taken into consideration, for an insured one expecting risk aversion, for a non-life insurance company intending to reasonably structure an insurance mechanism to acquire more insured ones, and furthermore, for the government pressed to reduce a financial burden as much as possible, essential requirements are: to structure means for setting insurance premium rates as reasonably as possible based on facts confirmed to be considerably reliable; to enhance a penetration rate of earthquake insurance, which was only 12.6% in the year 1996; and to structure a social constitution resistant to disasters as reasonably as possible.